NIKKI FINKE: SHE SAID WHAT?! Wanda Sykes Gives Extremely Partisan Performance At White House Correspondents Dinner. “I’ve been to the White House Correspondents Dinner. And, if history is any judge, then comedians asked to perform there seem to do best when they joke with gentle jibes rather than go for the jugular. Someone should have reminded Wanda Sykes about that. . . . Because not since Don Imus roughed up Bill Clinton at the annual event has a comedian been so mean-spirited. But, unlike Imus, Wanda Sykes didn’t lay a glove on the sitting president Barack Obama.” Nope. It’s about showing off in the classless-thug attack-dog competition, not about speaking truth to power. More of the lessons about today’s press corps previously explored in the context of mustard . . . .

DIJONGATE: What have we learned? “Congratulations to Professor Jacobson. Traffic at his Legal Insurrection blog, which was about 37,000 visits in February, surged to more than 107,000 in just two days Thursday and Friday, because he dared to point out how dishonest news coverage has become. The point was not that Obama likes Dijon mustard — I do, too, as does the man who named it ‘DijonGate’ — but rather that MSNBC and other major media are no longer in the news business. They’re doing public relations for the Obama administration and the Democratic Party. . . . Obviously, reporters didn’t think ‘Dijon mustard’ fit the narrative the White House wanted, and so they fudged the quote — and NBC even edited its own video — to omit the offensive French phrase. Jacobson pointed this out, and it was like showing a Rorschach inkblot to Charles Manson.”

UPDATE: A laughing matter?

EXPERTS SAY G.M. bankruptcy almost inevitable.

BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of news from the Apple Empire.

BIG BRASS ONES: Cheney: Obama Endangers The Nation.

UPDATE: The highest form of patriotism!

CHAVEZ SEIZES MORE:

A fresh round of expropriations in Venezuela has raised fears that the Opec producer’s already declining oil output could sink to its lowest level in the past 20 years.

Troops were mobilised over the weekend to assist Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, in seizing the assets of some 60 oil service companies, after a law was approved last week that paves the way for the state to take increasing control over its all-important oil industry. “To God what is God’s, and to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” said Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, as he presided over the expropriation of at least a dozen rigs, more than 30 oil terminals and some 300 boats.

More stuff for him to run into the ground. “The move is the latest sign of the deepening cashflow crisis that has bedeviled the state oil company for at least two years as it has become overburdened with responsibilities far removed from its core business – in particular funding and running the massive social programmes that have become the bedrock of Mr Chávez’s support.” And capital is being scared away, because of “regime uncertainty.”

AT WORK: Women bullying women. “Just the mention of women treating other women badly on the job seemingly shakes the women’s movement to its core. It is what Peggy Klaus, an executive coach in Berkeley, Calif., has called ‘the pink elephant’ in the room. . . . ‘We believe that a sense of pride in women’s accomplishments is important in getting women to help one another,’ Ms. Lau said. ‘To have this sense of pride, women need to be aware of their shared identity as women.’ In the workplace, however, it is unlikely that women will constantly think of themselves as members of one group, she said. They will more likely see themselves as individuals, as they are judged by their performance.”

PELOSI’S LATEST SPIN: I Was Told Interrogation Methods Were Lawful. Hey, that’s what Bush was told, too!

Further thoughts at The Mudville Gazette.

YUKKING IT UP. “I hope his kidneys fail.” As classy as we’ve come to expect.

Plus, Most of you covered me; all of you voted for me. Truth, spoken in jest. Well, maybe spoken in jest.

UPDATE: No laughing matter. I’d say the mask slipped, for those who wanted to pay attention.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader suggests that it should be “most of you covered for me.” Heh.

HERE’S MORE ON YESTERDAY’S BUFFALO TEA PARTY: Group Declares War on Incumbents.

FLU LESSONS from 1918.

LOOKING AFTER THE BASE: Preparing the country for a newspaper bailout?

DO REPUBLICANS NEED A MUTINY?

HEMORRHAGING FEDERAL RECEIPTS: Is there a “Galt effect?”

ALBUQUERQUE TEA PARTY FOLKS planning a big welcome for Obama on May 14.

NOW THIS IS REAL MULTICULTURALISM, circa 1926. . . .

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Cleaver earmark puts into focus one peril of politics.

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver likes earmarks.

His rule: If they come to his district, federal funds are well worth wrangling over, especially for infrastructure repairs and nonprofit causes.

But how does an East Coast software company qualify for a Cleaver earmark?

For two years, the Kansas City Democrat has secured earmarks totaling about $2 million with the aim of supplying a south Kansas City defense plant the latest in design software technology.

What seemed to him an easy chance to bring home some bacon, however, turned into a lesson on why earmarks are so controversial and difficult to follow.

For starters, the local plant he sought to help — the federally owned Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies Kansas City Plant — never asked for the money, plant officials said. . . . In tracing the origins of one little earmark — just a drop in a $7.7 billion bucket of pet projects earmarked in Congress’ recent omnibus spending bill — The Kansas City Star found that a lobbying group working for Massachusetts-based Parametric pushed for the funds.

That lobbyist, known as The PMA Group, is under federal investigation for its dealings with lawmakers. It was a major campaign donor to an Indiana congressman and others who served on the appropriations panel that signed off on Cleaver’s earmark.

Read the whole thing. And note the Visclosky connection.

COMEDIANS: Cowards, or hacks?

UPDATE: From the comments: Doing jobs Americans won’t do?

If domestic comedians aren’t supplying the comedy you like, you should import comedy from overseas.

British comedians are not at all shy about making fun of Obama. Hugh Dennis does a very good impression.

While British comedians are not known for being conservative (they think the Labour party is right wing), they have interest in American politics, and skewer all regardless of position.

Skewer all? That’s a novel approach. Perhaps we should try it here.

MORE TEA-PARTY LOCAL EFFORTS, this time in Bellingham, Washington.